TREE RIESENER
Satisfying the Ghazal Mind
The Ghazal
Like a sturdy flowering vine, the poetry form known as the ghazal has spread over the
world, taking on variety and nourishment from different countries and times. Characterized
by strict form but extreme freedom of content, the ghazal is often compared to a string of
jewels, with each jewel having its own beauty but all contributing to the beauty of the
necklace. Originally love poems, ghazals now express, love, prayer, revolution—in short,
the whole gamut of human emotion.
History of the Ghazal
The ghazal, a poem consisting of any number of rhymed couplets (in contemporary writing
often seven—it must be an odd number), began about 1300 years ago in Persia. Most
contemporary poets know the ghazals of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273), Maher Baba
Hafiz (1325-1389), or the modern master, the late Agha Shahid Ali. The ghazal form
has attracted writers such as Adrienne Rich, Robert Bly, and Gene Doty, who have written
ghazals with varying degrees of fidelity or experimentation.
Some vocabulary words one should be familiar with when discussing ghazals are
sher
(a couplet with lines of the same length, no enjambment between couplets),
beher
(metre, which can be in short, medium, or long lines),
matla (the first couplet,
which establishes the tone and metre of the poem),
maqta (the last couplet,
which is more general and philosophical, traditionally incorporating the poet’s name),
radif (the repeated word that ends both lines of the first couplet and the
second line of each succeeding couplet), and
qafiya (a word or two immediately
preceding the initial monorhyme, which rhymes with words in the corresponding position
in the following couplets) .
The late Agha Shahid Ali said that one should think of each couplet as a small
poem complete in itself and compared the
sher to a sonnet, where the first
line of the sher serves as the first eight lines of the sonnet and the second line
as the sestet of the sonnet, in which there is a “turn” toward the denouement. According
to Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr., a noted scholar and translator, these poems in Persian consist
of one long line, with a strong caesura.
To modern writers of ghazals, an important consideration is the "Englishing" of
this ancient Arabic-Persian-Urdu form, trying how far one can go with variations
and yet still offer poems as ghazals rather than free verse couplets. Although I am
not a speaker of Urdu (or other languages in which the ghazal has a rich history), I
am told that even in these languages there is interest in modern variations.
The traditional requirements of
matla and
maqta, qafiya
and
radif, beher, and so on, in my opinion, are easier matters for
a writer to experiment with than the concept of the supposed discontinuity of the
couplets, the most distinguishing characteristic of the ghazal. Accordingly, this
essay will focus on the relationship of the
shers to one another and to the poem
as a whole.
The Ghazal Mind
For my title, I have coined the expression “the ghazal mind” to describe a
reader’s/writer’s expectations and preparedness to receive thoughts written in the
ghazal form. The greater the reader’s/writer’s knowledge of the history and
development of ghazals, the more he/she can appreciate various tools that fulfill
the underlying structures that, even in variation, support the poetry, by which I
mean both the discipline of the appropriate elements, such as the
qafiya/radif,
and the freedom and allusiveness of the
shers, all necessary if a ghazal
is to achieve its full promise and be satisfying to the reader (and to the writer).
Accordingly, someone reading a supposed ghazal who finds appropriate structures,
consistent metre, use of
qafiya/radif but also finds the story of a
romance developed as a narrative, from initial attraction to final disillusion,
will probably find his/her ghazal mind is not satisfied, might say, “Hey, good
poem but not a ghazal, to my way of thinking,” since such narrative development
is not a characteristic of a ghazal, although there may be a subtle underlying theme.
Comparing poetry to painting, I might say that such a ghazal would be like a
painting in which the artist has a vision, has an excellent eye for color, controls
the brush strokes well but sets up a composition that is unsatisfying. A part of
the “painting mind” is not satisfied. On a gastronomical level, a cook may prepare
a meal that is well-cooked, well-sauced, and served on exquisite dishes with crystal
and silver, but the meal will not be satisfying if the basic ingredients are boring
and past their prime. A part of the “food enjoyment mind” is not satisfied. In the
same way, the ghazal writer tries to ensure that each part of the ghazal, even
with variation, is developed as a whole, with enough of the required elements to
satisfy “the ghazal mind.”
The Traditional Disunity
For those of us writing in English, it is helpful to see the ghazal as a
continuum from the strictest classical interpretation of the form to the so-called
free ghazals, which maintain the allusive approach to couplets but feel no compulsion
to keep other elements of the form.
For me, as for many others, the richness of the ghazal greatly depends on the
tension between the independence of the allusive
shers, what Agha Shahid Ali called
the “ravishing disunity,” and the discipline of the
qafiya and
radif (often broadly
interpreted); I think consideration of the
sher as an independent couplet and the unifying
factor of the
qafiya and
radif is the key aspect of ghazals. Accordingly, in this essay
I will explore the
shers’ relationships to the
radif (whether stated or understood)
and to one another.
To begin with, let's look at the traditional disunity of the
shers.
Classically, we are told that the
shers are independent of one another.
However, in my opinion, this viewpoint often holds up better in theory than in
actual practice. Once the initial
sher has risen out of the poet's mind
and been associated with some sort of
qafiya and/or
radif
(or other unifying factor), which then becomes a necessary part of the succeeding
shers, there is inevitable connection, if for no other reason than associations
stemming from cultural expectations.
The Inevitable Unity
Propinquity breeds familiarity, like the phenomenon known to college women living
in a dormitory, where gradually they all start to have their periods at the same time.
Their disparate bodies have linked in some unfathomable way simply because they are
living in the same space. And so with
shers. When the
shers fit to
the same rhyme and mono-rhyme, or other unifying factor, there is connection. But
the
shers may still have as much individuality as the young capped Mennonite
and the follower of the Stones, who are so different yet share femaleness as they
live in the same residence hall.
Thinking of each
sher as totally disparate may lead us in the wrong
direction. I think the point is more to avoid development and resolution, except
within the sher. In my opinion, it is very difficult to avoid subtle connections,
once the
maqta has been stated and the
qafiya/radif established,
and indeed, to me, gaining insight into these connections is part of the joy of
reading ghazals. At the same time, however, to have the "ravishing disunity" of the
shers always before the writer as a guiding light will help us to steer a
true course and not fall into the trap of writing a so-called ghazal with too-great
reliance on theme and/or narrative.
The Allusive Connections
I find it helpful to think of the
shers in any single seven-
sher
ghazal as being like six people in a ruminative conversation, where someone says something
of a general nature about life. The others appear to be part of the same conversation,
for somehow the first saying sparks each of them, as do the additional silences in the
conversation and the accumulation of each person's utterances there in the room, but in
general each seems to be involved in a monologue with himself/herself, until the first
speaker speaks again, this time a little more personally. At the same time, connections
run through the liminality between their utterances.
As an example, let me write such a conversation, which, will, I hope, in a very
mundane way, shine some light on the way the ghazal mind can work as a poet writes.
A Ghazally Conversation
six people sitting around in a bar on a hot summer afternoon, drinking boilermakers
and shooting the breeze, with perhaps a reflective silence and a few swallows between
each part of the conversation
- "Life is so precarious today; everybody seems to be losing their job."
(Know it or not, this first speaker is establishing the tone of the conversation.)
- "I'm not sure my wife is coming back."
(Hearing "precarious," this person relates to his immediate concern, that which
is in his mind. He, as well as the first speaker, is addressing the precariousness
of life; however, he doesn't relate to the subject of job loss, but to wife loss.)
- "Have to drive down to Tennesee tomorrow; a worry with gas prices the way they are."
(The reason for the drive to Tennessee? An old aunt has died, the last member of
the speaker's family, suggested by "wife." The remark about gas prices, a general worry,
may reflect both the financial insecurity of the first speaker and the family
instability of the second speaker.")
- "Saw a story about a solar-powered car on the news last night."
(Responding to the comment about gas prices.)
- "Anybody going down to the shore this weekend?"
(Mention of solar power has brought the idea of sunshine at the shore to mind. The southernness of Tennesee has also made the speaker think of sunshine, and thus the shore.)
- "No sooner do the leaves stop falling and it stops snowing than you have to cut
the grass and hedges."
(A little joke but responding to summertime activities. Perhaps the passage
of time. At least, worry about the obligations of living in community.)
- "Yeah, I guess losing a job is pretty low on the loss scale. But as long as
you've got your health and your family, right?"
(The first speaker has circled back to the original topic, with variation,
and reference to self.)
Although in print this conversation seems disconnected, as may happen after listening to
or reading a ghazal, these people are likely to part, feeling they have had a fairly
satisfying human connection, saying, "Hey, it's been great talking. Let's do it again soon."
Looking at this conversation again, with transitional phrases, we can see how the
relationships worked. Once the parts in italics have been added, what looked surreal
becomes a comprehensible conversation. The relationship among the
shers has been formalized.
- Life is so precarious today; everybody seems to be losing their job.
- Speaking of loss, I'm not sure my wife is coming back today.
- I just lost the last member of my family, an old aunt. I have to drive down
to Tennessee for the funeral tomorrow. A worry with gas prices the way they are.
- Speaking of gas prices, I saw a story about a solar-powered car on the news
last night.
- Solar power. Great for places with plenty of sunshine. Anybody going down to
the shore this weekend?
- Got too much to do around the house. No sooner do the leaves stop falling and
it stops snowing than you have to cut the grass and hedges.
- Well, we're lucky to have houses. I guess losing a job is pretty low on the
loss scale. But as long as you've got your health and your family, right?
While it may not be true for others, for me,
shers often work very much like
the parts of this conversation, each succeeding
sher arising out of the silence following
the last
sher. Trust your mind to offer something, in the same way Drano working
in your pipes offers rather beautiful bursting glubby bubbles that work their way to the
surface, eventually letting the water run free. Think of the glubby bubbles as shers and
the pipes as the
qafiya/radif. Stuff is working out to let the thought run clear through
the discipline of the walls of the pipe.
A ghazal is like a sparkler, with the flung-off sparks taking substance from the glowing
core; like the primordial sea with distinct emerging creatures, all with the composition
of the brine from which they have come; like children running in free patterns playing tag,
swooping and circling around one another, completely free except for the moment when they
turn back, touch home base for a moment of rest, and then break free to run again; like a
tour through the streets of the medieval Marais section of Paris, where from time to time
you might lose track of a nice street you're enjoying but after a few turns and around the
block, you catch sight of it again and again and again.
Tree Riesener has published poetry and short fiction in such magazines as
The Evergreen Review, Identity Theory, Pindeldyboz, Loch Raven Review,
The Belletrist Review, Diner, and
Fine Print. She has also been a semi-finalist
in the Pablo Neruda Poetry Competition and received a Hawthornden International Writing Fellowship, a Pushcart nomination, and the
William Van Wert Fiction Award. She presently serves as Managing Editor of the
Schuylkill Valley Journal and
is the author of
Liminalog, a chapbook of ghazals and sijo. Visit her website at
www.treeriesener.com